'Terrorists want a lot of people watching and a lot of people dead': Fear-arousing walking interviews with travellers
Abstract
A special relationship exists between terrorism and tourism. Explanations of the relationship have been subject of academic debates ever since 1980s.
Apart from descriptive case studies, however, the effects of terrorism on tourism have been mainly studied from a quantitative-research perspective. Moreover, previous research has largely focused on the effects of terrorism ahead of travelling (e.g., the effects on destination choice) and omitted the role of terrorism during the visit.
This contribution aims to overcome these and other un- or under-researched topics in the terrorism-tourism nexus. Specifically, the aim of the study is to evaluate urban tourists' perceptions of the risk of terrorism with a main focus on factors affecting these perceptions.
Fear-arousing walking interviews were employed to collect data which were analysed using framework analysis. The interviews were conducted with a rather young (age<40), gender-balanced and international sample of travellers in Munich, Germany, which served as a model city.
The travellers almost unanimously report no fear of terrorism while visiting Munich's city centre. Yet, they acknowledge that the possibility for a terrorist incident exists.
The main factor affecting the perception of the risk of terrorism is the amount of people present. Consequently, differences exist within tourists' perceptions among various sites as the main city square, shopping streets and transportation hubs are perceived more terrorism-prone than, for instance, religious sites.
Importantly, visible antiterrorism measures are perceived by many travellers rather positively. Since travellers are accepting the measures even without reported fear of terrorism, this finding bears important implications for policy makers.